I got on the plane to D.C. a hollow shell of my former self. My tumultuous morning has sucked the soul from me like an eight year old sucking the filling from a Twinkie. After the Orwellian rebirthing ritual of the TSA security check* I shot put my carryon into the overhead compartment and collapsed like a ragdoll into the seat. The woman sitting next to me smiled broadly. I couldn’t help but wish death upon her for being well rested.
I wanted to turn to her and say, “I don’t exist. I’m a nonentity. If you speak to me, I will not respond, because I am effectively the walking dead.” I smiled weakly back at her and readied myself for takeoff. I twisted the little air conditioning nipple, which, due to its placement, shot a stream of ice-cold air, directly into my left ear. I shut my eyes for a moment and plunged into a deep dark well of delicious slumber. I was nothingness. I was the human equivalent of this symbol (-0) I passed from a void of unconsciousness to hyper consciousness. I became everything and nothing at the same time, I spoke with Indra and realized the truth of truth itself. And I drooled. I drooled a lot.
“Welcome to Dallas ladies and gentlemen!” The voice of the pilot tore me kicking and screaming from my unconscious womb. I was missing my right arm. It was so severely asleep that I assumed amputation was my only option. My left ear was frozen from the arctic blast of the air conditioning nipple, and it felt as if all of the moisture has been sucked out of my body, never to return again. I made it to Dallas.
If you’ve never been to the airport in Dallas, allow me to paint you a word picture: You know that secret level in Super Mario Brothers 3, where, if you get the magic flute, you can get to the world where everything is cartoonishly enormous? Yeah, it’s like that.
I felt like I shrunk three feet in every direction, and would have to shout to be heard in this land of giants. I walked up to a large food stand, where a large woman, was dipping a large hotdog stuffed in a pretzel into a large vat of butter. I asked her to fill up my water bottle, feeling all of six inches tall. She filled it quickly and went back to dunking the meat-pretzel in butter. I don’t know why I’m surprised to say it, but everything really is bigger in Texas. Way way way bigger. And fried.
I went to a yogurt stand, ordered a medium , and was handed a Jacuzzi sized cup of fro-yo. I sat in the terminal, scaling my mountain of yogurt, and waiting for my next flight. That’s when it happened. I realized that I had really left. I was gone. I had no plans to return to California for twenty-seven months.
I felt the safety cord snap off my old life.
I had all of my possessions in another state. All I needed to do was get on the next plane, but I could just as easily go anywhere else. Freedom is never clearer to you than when you have a suitcase full of everything for a moment in a Dallas airport, with a bucket of frozen yogurt. I was endless for a few lovely moments. I sat, ate yogurt and marveled at how little I knew, about anything. Then I got on the next plane.
*I opted out of the radiation box, because I’m not going to give the goods away for free, not even to Uncle Sam.
No comments:
Post a Comment